MIDLANDS STATE UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND COMMUNICATION Constraint Interaction and Ranking in Vocalic Hiatus Contexts in Three Bantu Languages by COLLEN SABAO (R0223636) A thesis submitted to the Department of English and Communication, Midlands State University in fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Philosophy in Linguistics Degree SUPERVISOR: PROF CAROLYN. H. HARFORD CO-SUPERVISOR: DR CHARLES PFUKWA JUNE 2009 DECLARATION BY STUDENT I Collen Sabao (R0223636) sincerely declare that this thesis is my original work that has not been previously submitted in any other university for examination. Proper citation and acknowledgements in line with the copyright laws and ethical requirements have been strictly adhered to in the writing of this text. Signature of student: Date: 06/06/2009 i DEDICATION For all my heroes, my father David (31.05.51 – 15.12.07), you are all of them! …and for my two daughters: Bethel Joyce Takudzwa & Herschelle Coleen Kuzivakwashe (24/03/09 – 11/04/09) “You are only really dead when you are completely forgotten! I will forget not” - Col. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I hereby acknowledge the inspiration, advice, guidance, suggestions and criticisms from my main supervisor(s), Professor Carolyn H. Harford and Dr. Charles Pfukwa that this thesis has benefited immensely from. I express gratitude to the Department of English and Communication of the Midlands State University for the opportunity to learn and for all the moral support. I also express gratitude to the following people from the University of Malawi (Chancellor College) for their contributions through the provision of materials, criticisms and validation/authentification of the contents of this research and for also contributing in one way or another to the completion of this study: Professor Pascal. J. Kishindo, Professor Al. D. Mtenje, Professor Femi Abodunrin, Mr. Winfred Mkochi and Mr. Kondwani Msaka as well as Ms. Atikonda Akuzike Mtenje, from Mzuzu University. The following people also deserve special mention: My mother Mrs. Joyce Sabao (‘Snr’), all my siblings (Sam, Tafadzwa, Linda and Ashley), my beloved uncle Mr. Brian Muzemba and family, Mr Joseph Kasayira and family (for the welfare and encouragements), Mr. Casper Kamunda and family (for friendship shared, the beers and relationships built!), Mr. Shepherd Mugezi (for abusing your computer!), Professor Wiseman Magwa (for all those books!), Dr. William Zivenge and Mr Enerst Jakaza (for the encouragements). Lastly, and most importantly, to two very important people in my life at present: the best (and probably the only one!) of my best friends, Ms. Asante Lucy Mtenje and my daughter Bethel Joyce Takudzwa for all the patience, 'the pushes' and most of all, for making me believe in life, love and myself! The part(s) played by all the above mentioned people in the compilation of this thesis is immense and invaluable. All errors, shortcomings and half-truths that lie herein in this thesis are entirely mine, and not in way of my supervisor(s) nor of any of the persons mentioned above. iii ABSTRACT This thesis argues for context and vowel-feature conditioned repair of hiatal configuration in selected Bantu languages. Bantu languages by and large phonologically and/or phonetically repair vowel hiatus configurations arising from both phonological and morphophonological concatenations. This research makes a comparative cross- linguistic analysis of the repair strategies of vocalic hiatus configurations in three Bantu languages (Chichewa, Chitumbuka and Ndebele). The phonologies of these Bantu languages seem to largely favour an analysis that does not permit the surface realisation of clusters of segments of the form VV (vowel-vowel clusters). Observing such an analysis, which this research argues to be largely ONSET motivated/triggered and the featural properties of the phonological structures of the languages under study, their reactions to such disprefered vowel clusters and their phonotactics are here examined within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT) Prince and Smolensky (1991, 1993), McCarthy and Prince (1999), Archangeli (1997) and Kager (1999). Repair strategies for such configurations such as glide formation, consonantal and/or glide insertions, final vowel deletion and coalescence are discussed. The analysis adopted here implicates that the resolution of these disprefered configurations arises from incompatibilities in the features of the vowels straddling a word boundary. It argues that these repair strategies are largely motivated by language internal constraint ranking systems which in Bantu languages seem to largely prefer the preservation of [-] features over [+] features i.e. the ranking [-F’]»[+F’]1. 1 By [-] features/[-F’] we refer to features such as [-high], [-low], [-back], [-round] etc while by [+] features we refer to features such as [+high], [+low], [+back], [+round] etc.. The thesis established here is that there seems to be an inherent motivation within the languages, in the resolution of hiatal configurations, for the preservation of the [-] iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION BY STUDENT i DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii CHAPTER 1: GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 1.0. Area of Investigation 1 1.1. Research Background 3 1.2. Brief Socio-historical Background of Study languages 7 1.2.1. (Isi)Ndebele 7 1.2.2. Chichewa 8 1.2.3. Chitumbuka 12 1.3. Objectives of the study 13 1.4. Justification of Research 14 1.4.1. Empirical Justification 14 1.4.2. Theoretical Justification 17 1.5 Research Methodology 19 1.5.1. Data Collection 20 1.5.2. Informants 21 1.6. Organization of the Study 22 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 23 2.0. Introduction 23 2.1. On the terms ‘Vowel’ and ‘Vowel Hiatus’ 24 features if any of the vowels at the hiatal configuration contains them. This is however done at the expense of the [+] features which are seemingly ranked lower than their [-] features counterparts and which are thus violated. v 2.2. Vowel Hiatus Resolution Mechanisms 26 2.2.1. Coalescence 27 2.2.1.0. Coalescence Triggers 29 2.2.1.0.1. Epenthesis as a trigger 29 2.2.1.0.2. The initial vowel as a trigger 37 2.2.2. Glide Formation and Dissimilation 41 2.2.3. Elision 50 2.3. Summary/Conclusion 55 CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 57 3.0. Introduction 57 3.1. Optimality Theory – An Overview 58 3.2. Input and Output Relationships in Grammar 63 3.3. Constraint Interaction and Ranking 67 3.4. Outputs as results of hierarchical constraint ranking system 70 3.5. Further examples and more constraints 79 3.5.1. Further examples and constraints 80 3.5.1.1. Elision 80 3.5.1.2. Glide Formation 82 3.5.2. General constraints related to vocalic/vowel hiatus 84 3.6. Summary/Conclusion 85 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 87 4.0. Introduction 87 4.1. Identification and resolution of vowel sequences in Chichewa 88 4.1.0. Chichewa Vowel and Syllable Structure(s) 89 4.1.1. Glide Formation/Insertion in Chichewa 93 4.1.2. Coalescence in Chichewa 103 4.1.3. Deletion/Elision in Chichewa 110 4.2. Identification and resolution of vowel sequences in Ndebele 119 4.2.0. Ndebele Vowel and Syllable Structure(s) 120 vi 4.2.1. Glide Formation/Insertion in Ndebele 122 4.2.2. Coalescence in Ndebele 134 4.2.3. Deletion/Elision in Ndebele 145 4.3. Identification and resolution of vowel sequences in Chitumbuka 152 4.3.0. Chitumbuka Vowel and Syllable Structure(s) 152 4.3.1. Glide Formation/Insertion in Chitumbuka 155 4.3.2. Coalescence in Chitumbuka 166 4.3.3. Deletion/Elision in Chitumbuka 170 4.4. Summary/Conclusion 176 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 178 5.0. Introduction 178 5.1. General Conclusions of Research Findings 179 5.1.1. Coalescence 180 5.1.2. Glide Formation/Epenthesis 183 5.1.3. Elision 186 5.2. Suggestions/Recommendations for further study 188 5.3. Summary/Conclusion 189 REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY: 190 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS* *NB: The list does not include the definitions/description of all the constraints used in this thesis. These are defined and explained where they are mentioned for the first time in the body of the thesis. 1p – 1st Person Plural Marker 1s – 1st Person Singular Marker 2p – 2nd Person Plural Marker 2s – 2nd Person Singular Marker 3s – 3rd Person Singular Marker Adj – Adjective C – Consonant CC – Consonant Cluster Cl. – Class (Noun Class Prefix)2 CON – Constraint(s) CV – Consonant and Vowel (Syllable) CVC - Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (Syllable) CVV - Consonant-Vowel-Vowel (Syllable) DPVE – Demonstrative Pronoun Vowel Elision EV – Epenthetic Vowel EVAL - Evaluator FV – Final Vowel FVT – Final Vowel Truncation G – Glide GEN- Generator Inf – Infinitive (Prefix) IV – Initial Vowel N - Noun 2 e.g. Shona Cl.3 refers to Noun Prefix /mi-/ of Class 3 as in /miti/ ‘trees’ viii Neg –Negative/Negation NP - Noun Prefix OM - Object Marker OT - Optimality Theory Prep – Preposition Pres Cont – Present Continuous Tense Marker PSSR – Preferred Syllable Structure Rule(s) Pst Tns – Past Tense Marker RP – Recent Past Tense SM - Subject Marker Syll – Syllable V – Vowel Vrb - Verb VV–Vowel Cluster ix Chapter 1 General Introduction 1.0. Area of Investigation The purpose of this study is to examine and make a comparative cross-linguistic analysis of the phonological processes that result from vowel hiatus resolution (and non-resolutions!) in Bantu languages (with specific reference to Chichewa, Ndebele and Chitumbuka). Vocalic hiatus here refers to instances where two vowels occur adjacently/heterosyllabically in the input forms of the languages’ generative grammars. These processes include among others, elision, epenthesis, glide insertion, glide formation as well as coalescence. The study area for this research is thus Generative Linguistics. The study explores Optimality Theory, henceforth (OT) in Generative Linguistics, in particular, how constraint interaction and ranking (a part of the theory’s underpinnings) can be used to explain the occurrence of the phonological processes mentioned above.